The Magic of Murder

by Susan Lynn Solomon

  Roger’s face turned bright red. He appeared too angry to speak.

  As if he might hide, Kevin twisted on the stool and ducked his head toward the kitchen counter.

  The cat poked her face from behind a canister and hissed. Elvira had no affection for my ex. I couldn’t blame her.

  For more than a minute, everyone stared at Kevin.

  At last, the man with the pipe in his pocket said, “This the way you cooperate on cases in Niagara Falls?” His eyebrows almost formed a V. He sounded as annoyed as he looked.

  “What do you want from me, Agent Parker?” Roger said. “I got the call and came over here. Should I have waited for you while Reinhart took off again?”

  It might have been a good bluff, if the cop who opened the door didn’t at first deny Roger was here, and if both cops didn’t look away when they heard what Roger said.

  Elvira scampered across the counter. She stopped near Agent Parker. When the DEA Agent turned to her, she glared at him, as if she might freeze the man with her pink eyes then bend him to her will (that’s what she’d done to me months earlier when I refused to read about the Salem witches). Or maybe she thought she could make him disappear altogether. The only effect her stare had was to deepen the man’s frown.

  “What’s with this damn cat?” Agent Parker said.

  With one hand on a crutch, I scooped Elvira up in my arm and held her away.

  Snorting at Elvira, at me, at Roger, or maybe at what he saw as our conspiracy to keep my ex out of his hands, Parker commanded, “We’ll take our prisoner now.”

  I intended to inform him Kevin was our prisoner, not his, but Roger laid a hand on my wrist.

  One of the federal agents grabbed Kevin by the handcuffs. The other latched onto his overcoat. With his shoulders hunched, my former mate looked as though he’d shrunken into himself.

  “This will wrap up the drug ring in a nice tidy package,” Parker said.

  I pushed Roger’s hand away. “What about Detective Osborn and Amy Woodward?” I said. “Doesn’t the DEA care they were murdered?”

  Halfway out the door, the second agent replied, “We’ll let you know if we get anything out of Reinhart.”

  “I want a lawyer,” Kevin whined.

  Rebecca slammed the door behind the agents and leaned against it. She seemed to be out of breath. Her braid had begun to come apart, long tendrils sticking out here and there. Over the past hour her hair had gone from tight curls to frizz. The damp air wasn’t the only cause. My friend got nervous around this many policemen. I knew why: in her teenage years she’d learned the art of reading cards and palms from women in a family that moved down from Canada. Eastern European—Romanian, she thought. The family had darker skin than others in the small mid-western town Rebecca came from. After 9/11, people became xenophobic, wary of accents. Germanic, Slavic, Arabic—to the simple folk she’d grown up among, they were the same. Neighbors were suspicious of her new friends. So were the police. If a car backfired in the town, someone would call the sheriff’s office and shout about a bomber on the loose. Next thing, her new friends would be hauled in for questioning, harassed on general principles. Rebecca would be hauled in, too, since the townsfolk thought she’d been brainwashed by the damn foreigners.

  Still leaning against the door minutes after the DEA agents left, she said, “What do we do now?”

  “Get some sleep,” Roger said. “With Reinhart and the gang from the barn corralled, you won’t be bothered any longer.” His tone told me he was far from satisfied with the way his case ended.

  I knew Roger wouldn’t sleep. He hated loose ends. In this, he and I are alike—I’m not done with a story until every subplot has been resolved.

  “Aren’t you going to follow Agent Parker?” I asked. “You caught Kevin. Parker’s got to let you help question him.”

  “What for?” Roger said. “We got the whole drug gang.”

  “Because I’m sure he knows something that’ll point us toward the killer.”

  “Still don’t believe Reinhart’s the one who pulled the trigger?”

  I stooped and put Elvira on the floor. “Do you still believe Chief Woodward didn’t kill his wife?”

  “Yes. I think your ex-husband did it.”

  “Well then, if you want to get Woody off the hook,” I said, “you ought to force your way in while they question Kevin.”

  “She’s right, you know,” Rebecca said.

  The cat rolled over, then sat at Roger’s feet. Craning her neck to him, she let out a long meeeow.

  Roger bent at the waist. With hands on his hips, he spoke directly to Elvira. “Of course, I want to do that.”

  The cat cocked her head.

  “Because the Feds won’t let me,” he said. “You saw how pissed they were when they left.”

  I was surprised. When had Roger learned to speak cat?

  “Keep arguing with us, and they’ll have Kevin halfway back to Washington,” I said. “Then you’ll never find out what he knows.”

  Rebecca added, “And Chief Woodward will spend his life in jail for a murder you’re sure he didn’t commit.”

  “Can you live with that?” I said.

  Elvira’s purrrr echoed my sentiment.

  His back to us, Roger muttered, “You’re a royal pain in my ass, all three of you.”

  This was his way of admitting without having to say it, we were right. Men! But at least he stopped arguing.

  No need to grab his overcoat before he stomped out my front door—he hadn’t taken it off since he arrived—without another word, Roger was in his Trailblazer and gone. I guess he found it easier to do what we asked, than to keep trading words with a stubborn cat…um, Elvira, I mean, not me or Rebecca.

  ***

  Rebecca let out a long breath. “I thought he’d never leave.”

  “I just hope the DEA lets Roger question Kevin,” I said. “But, even if they don’t—”

  “You think you know who did it, don’t you?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe.”

  During the past two days, my friend had shown little inclination to chase after the killer. From the time she appeared at Main Street Books, it seemed she sought only to keep me from becoming the third victim. Though I knew I would have been in rather bad shape if she hadn’t shown up, I’d grown a bit annoyed at her reluctance. Now, her posture was relaxed, her face calm.

  “Good. Let’s get the bastard,” she said, at last ready to fight back.

  “Don’t you want to know who I think it is?”

  Her jaw slid from side to side and she shook her head. “I’ll find out soon enough. Where do we go from here?”

  I looked around and saw Elvira on the coffee table, pawing at Sarah Goode’s book.

  “The cat’s right,” I said. “What Sarah wrote has pointed us in the right direction from the start.” I scratched the white fur on the cat’s neck then picked up the book. “Where do I look?” I asked.

  Her head tilted, Elvira gave me a quizzical look.

  “She might not know what to do,” Rebecca said as she dropped onto the wingback chair. “But she knows Sarah does.”

  I settled on my sofa and flipped the book open. Pages turned. There was nothing supernatural about this. It was the principle of friction or something such as that. What do I know?—in twelfth grade, my science teacher gave me a passing grade only because I helped his daughter with the essay for her college application.

  I began to read from where the pages came to rest: “Third of July, by the grace of…I cannot call Him God.”

  I glanced over at Rebecca. “Sarah can’t say God? Do you think a demon got into her?”

  “This isn’t the time to worry about a demon eating your ancestor’s soul,” she said. “Keep reading.”

  “Don’t worry about it? We’re practicing what she did. What if we’re following her down the dark road to hell? Maybe my leg got burned as a warning about where I’m headed.”

  Elvira jumped on my lap and pawed the pag
e.

  “Your white fur’s going to get full of soot in hell,” I told her.

  “Read,” Rebecca instructed.

  This was a reverse of our roles the day before. Yesterday my friend had been loath to walk in Sarah Goode’s footprints. Today, I was the one who felt hellfire lick my back. Still, I knew Rebecca was right: if I were ever to put an end to the madness around me, we’d have to follow where Sarah led.

  “Okay,” I said. “This is what she wrote:

  “I am betrayed by all I have known, by all I have trusted. I have trusted my life to Him, and by Him, too, have I been betrayed. I have been tried and convicted by the words of simple children, who chew the wheat in the field instead of working it as they must. And when caught in their idleness, they twitch and rant, and swear they are bewitched. Swear before Him they are bewitched. Swear before the magistrates, it is I who bewitched them. It was not bewitching I did when I gave them an herbal tea to ease their brain fever. It was the work of Him who showed me I might cure the fever by such means. And now, oh, I am betrayed.

  “At ordeal three days past, my young daughter, my Dorothy, testified I forced her also to partake of this tea. The Devil’s tea, Magistrate Corwin insisted she say. And my husband, William, swore, too, it was a Devil’s brew. He needed no prodding by Corwin or Hathorne to swear it is so. Why? In this dark cell I have asked God why. And God tells me it is an answer I know. He is wise.

  “Though I sought to hide it among my candles beneath straw in the loft, William has found this book, and read in it my yearning after dear George Burroughs. Jealousy brought from him the lies by which I am condemned to a short drop on Gallows Hill. William brought this book to me in my cell this morning and told me I have soiled his spirit with so great a treachery only God’s wrath against me will cleanse it. He said then he would swear an oath also against George, if Heaven permits. In this manner has God shown me it is by my own words, writ by moonlight, that I am condemned.

  “I fear God’s retribution. Is there yet a way I may postpone His wrath and live to atone? Aye, there may be. Now must I use my herbs to save myself instead of others. I will write on these pages those plants I require for an amulet of truth. When my eldest, Emlyn, comes to me tomorrow, I will give her my book for safekeeping, and tell her how to tie those herbs in white linen. White is the color of truth. The herbs when combined will draw forth in public from the husband I have betrayed, the reason behind his lie.”

  I stopped and looked up at Rebecca.

  “Keep reading,” she said. “What herbs do we need?”

  I turned to the next page, turned back. “I don’t know.”

  She leaned from her chair. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “What I said.” I wiped sweat from my forehead. “Did you turn the heat up?”

  “Forget the heat, what’s the mixture for the amulet?”

  I pointed to the book. “It’s not here!”

  Rebecca’s eyes went wide. I could almost see smoke waft from her nose. It was as if she’d been engrossed in a mystery and someone tore the last page from her book—which, when I think about it, is what happened.

  “Gimme that!”

  She grabbed Sarah’s book from my hands and dropped it on the coffee table. With manic motions, she turned page after page. Then, as if she’d spent every bit of her energy, she slumped back in her chair.

  “Now what do we do?” she said.

  “Damn,” I muttered and looked to Elvira. “Any ideas?”

  The cat looked back, her eyes hooded, as if she searched for one. Then she opened her eyes and her mouth.

  As crazy as it sounds, I believe Rebecca and I both expected Elvira would verbalize an answer in clear, grammatically correct English. She didn’t get the chance. Just then my cell phone played the chorus of The Cats in the Cradle.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Arresting Developments

  When I flipped up the lid of my phone, Roger said, “Turns out you were right—”

  The honk-honk of horns crowded out the rest of his sentence.

  As if it were me who couldn’t be heard above the racket, I shouted, “Talk louder!”

  “Damn!” he said.

  I heard a quick wroo-wroo of a police siren. Obviously, Roger was in his car. Just as obviously, he was caught in traffic.

  “Get the hell outta my way!” he hollered. “Can’t you see this is official business?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Don’t have to shout at me. I hear you,” he said.

  “Okay, okay.” In a quieter voice, I repeated, “What’s going on?”

  “Kevin was holding something back,” Roger told me. “A big something. Blew this case wide open when he finally started to sing.”

  I felt such instant relief, my leg stopped hurting. “How’d you get it out of him?” I asked.

  “What?” Rebecca said.

  I repeated Roger’s words.

  “How’d they do it?” she asked.

  “Shh.” I flapped my wrist to stop her from talking. “He’s about to tell me.” Into the phone, I said, “You’re going to tell me, right?”

  “Yeah, I’ll tell you.” Though Roger clearly felt pressure to get somewhere, he had less tension in his voice than there had been since a bottle bomb smashed the window of my house. “Agent Parker also thought Reinhart knew more, though it wasn’t the murders Parker wanted to know about. That federal lummox was only after a pretty ribbon to tie around his drug case. Soon as he offered your ex witness protection, Parker got what he needed to round up the big kahunas in Buffalo.”

  “Who’d Kevin give up?”

  Rebecca poked me. “What? What?”

  “Shh!” I pushed the button to put his voice on the phone’s small speaker. “Happy now? Okay, Roger, go on. We’re listening.”

  “It’s Jimmy’s son-in-law, Sean Ryan, who’s behind everything going on in Niagara Falls.”

  My jaw dropped. Sean’s face hadn’t been on one of the patches of my quilt. Could I have been wrong about how all the patches fit together? My eyes shot around my living room, as if to search for what I’d missed.

  “Sean?” I said.

  “According to your ex it’s him.”

  This can’t be right, I thought. “Can we believe Kevin?”

  “I’m about to find out.”

  Rebecca nearly jumped out of her seat. “C’mon, c’mon, what did Kevin say?”

  Roger explained Sean Ryan had been chasing a story for the Buffalo News about the drug ring operating on the south end, and he got chummy with some guys who brought the drugs in from downstate. Sean allegedly convinced those guys there was big money to be had peddling the powder to high rollers at the Niagara Falls casino. Kevin saw Ryan pass the stuff out one night, and sold him on the idea of selling the coke to clients of Ira Smith’s insurance agency. When Smith found out what Kevin was up to, he wanted in, too.

  “I’m told Smith bawled like a baby when he opened his door and saw Deputy Chief Reynolds and a couple of squad cars outside his house,” Roger said. “The DEA decided he’s small potatoes. Since they don’t need Smith to make their main case, they’re gonna let us prosecute him locally. That made Reynolds happy.”

  What Roger said made sense. It tied in nicely to what Ira had hinted to Rebecca and what he’d told us. As for Sean Ryan, I remembered the way he hadn’t let Jennifer out of his sight when I visited Marge Osborn. Then there was the way he held tight to her arm when he saw Roger with me at the book signing. So Jennifer probably knew what Sean was up to. Still, I had a nagging sensation a piece was missing. What was it? Stuck in the back of my mind was something I’d seen when I dropped by the Osborn house after the funeral. Or could it have been something that wasn’t there? I knew whatever it was would tell me what questions I hadn’t thought to ask. What I’d missed was right there, just beyond my grasp. Figuratively, I stretched out my hand until I almost had it—

  “Wait a minute,” Rebecca said. “Where does Detective
Osborn come into this? Did he belong to the gang?”

  Her question knocked my hand from what I almost had in my grasp. As if it were a butterfly, the recollection fluttered away.

  “Uh-uh,” Roger said. “Jimmy learned about the operation. Stupid kid, how’d Sean think he could keep it a secret from his wife? Jennifer got suspicious one night when she was at the casino and saw him skulking in a corner with Reinhart. She phoned Jimmy. Jimmy went to Smith’s office looking for Kevin. Figured he’d implicate Sean. Smith told Reinhart about the visit, then Reinhart blabbed to Sean. Family.” Roger sighed. “I guess that’s why Jimmy didn’t tell me what he found out.” He sounded relieved his partner, his friend, hadn’t been dirty.

  Kevin’s version of what happened didn’t convince me. I couldn’t let go of the new Corvette in the Osborns’ driveway. Where had Jimmy gotten the money to buy it? Marge said they’d scrimped for every penny— Damn, what was it I couldn’t remember?

  “So the Ryan kid killed Detective Osborn?” Rebecca asked.

  “That’s what Reinhart thinks.”

  “But, did Kevin see him do it?” I said.

  “No.”

  “Did Sean tell Kevin he did it?”

  “Hey, what’s with you?” Roger said. “I thought you’d be glad, knowing it’s over.”

  I looked at Rebecca with doubt in my eyes. We both passed a doubtful expression to Elvira. On the floor at our feet, the cat craned her neck and looked through the French doors to where I’d imagined seeing Sarah in the snow. Instead of my ancestor out there now, I imagined the butterfly I mentally chased. The winged bug floated closer.

  “It’s not over, Roger,” I said. “Even if Sean killed Jimmy to keep from being arrested, why did he kill Amy Woodward?”

  “Who knows what goes through the guy’s mind?” The lightness was gone from Roger’s voice. He sounded distracted. “Maybe she bought drugs from him and couldn’t pay. Maybe she threatened to tell Woody.”

  “Amy Woodward was a cokehead? Oh, come on.” I never would have written her character that way. I glanced at the wall across from me. On it, hung above my computer desk, was a framed page from my first published story.